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Tuesday, December 17, 2013

A festive blog: Happiness and health

Blog on happiness

This is a season in which we all wish one another happiness
for both Christmas and for the New Year. It is a time for happiness. However,
research into happiness does not confine itself to seasons or birthdays but
looks at overall happiness with life and, in some cases, attempts to relate
that sense of happiness to our health. For this blog, I draw on a paper
published in the Journal of Happiness Studies and no, this is not a joke, such
a journal does exist published by the Springer[1]
company and edited by Prof Antonella Dell Fave from Milan. Today’s blog centres
on a paper from the Erasmus University of Rotterdam entitled:“Healthy happiness: effects of happiness on
physical health and the consequences for preventative care[2]”.

The author begins by accepting the view that physical health
can be influenced by positive and negative mental states although this does not
suggest any role for positive mental health in prevention of serious illness
such as cancer. In this review the author focuses on longevity as a correlate
with happiness and then asks how happiness can be exploited as a concept in the
promotion of good health. In this context, happiness is defined as “overall
appreciation of one’s own life-as-a-whole” or in other words “how much one
likes the life one lives”. Such definitions of happiness allow for an objective
and universal measure of how happy people are.

The author starts with the World Database of Happiness,[3]
which shows that a positive and statistically significant correlation exists
between measures of happiness and physical health. Those for self-reported
health are greater than those correlations of happiness and health ratings
based on medical opinion. However, correlations cannot tell us anything about
cause and effect and so the author surveyed the literature in this area. Four
studies were identified where some base line measure of happiness was taken and
then health status (medically determined or self-reported) studied many years
later. In general, those results were inconclusive, which led the author to
look at measures of happiness and longevity, an objective measure of overall
health. The author recorded a total of 30 such studies, eleven of which were
among people who were in bad health. Happiness and longevity among this group
was not at all clear-cut, reinforcing the earlier point that the biological
evolution of chronic diseases, such as cancer, cannot be abated by happiness. Some
19 studies focused on health and happiness in healthy individuals. The follow
up periods ranged from 1 to 60 years with 5 covering 20 years or more.In total, some 24 effects of happiness and
health were studied of which 16 (67%) were statistically positive while in the
remaining 8 cases, a positive effect was observed which failed to reach
statistical significance. The authors conclude that the evidence clearly points
to the fact that happiness “protects” against falling ill.

This blogger would ask whether there are any overlaps between
gene profiles for longevity and gene profiles for happiness. And, “surprise, surprise”,
happiness is very highly heritable based on a large study of identical and
non-identical twins in Minnesota[4].
A basic question on wellbeing was administered to 1380 twin pairs living
together and was then re-administered to the same twins some 10 years later,
leading to the conclusion that up to 80% of the stable aspect of wellbeing is
heritable. So is it that happiness increases longevity or is it that to have
the “happiness” genes is also to have the “longevity” genes. At this point in
time we don’t know.

Happiness can influence health in many ways. Thus, it is well
known that negative mental states promote poorer immune responses, higher blood
pressure and other adverse physiological effects. In contrast, happiness is
more likely to cope with threatening information and thus less fearful of
preventative activities such as health screening. Happier people are more
likely to engage in sports and are also less likely to be fatalistic as regards
health.

Epidemiology deals with populations and tells us how our
health trajectory is determined by our many lifestyle choices. But which is
more important, health alone or happiness? Here in Ireland and I assume
elsewhere, there is understandably a huge value put on being healthy. But
happiness must over-ride health and so many individuals suffering from
life-threatening conditions daily exhibit magnificent happiness. This is beyond
the metrics of epidemiology for whom the bottom line is disease orientated. And
if we move beneath life- threatening conditions and consider the risk factors
for disease, the big paymaster of epidemiology, can we be happy and fat, or a
happy smoker or a happy hypercholesterolaemic? Of course it would be best to be
happy and healthy beyond imagination – Californian healthy even.

But that’s not life. Happiness must enter the lexicon of
those concerned with life, lifestyle and wellbeing. It is the highest level of
human achievement. And it can even be topped by also making someone else happy.

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"Ever seen a fat fox ~ Human obesity explored"

About Me

I graduated from University College Dublin in 1971 with an Masters in Agricultural Chemistry, took a PhD at Sydney University in 1976 and joined the University of Southampton Medical School as a lecturer in human nutrition in 1977. In 1984 I returned to Ireland to take up a post at the Department of Clinical Medicine Trinity College Dublin and was appointed as professor of human nutrition. In 2006 I left Trinity and moved to University College Dublin as Director of the UCD Institute of Food and Health. I am a former President of the Nutrition Society and I've served on several EU and UN committees on nutrition and Health. I have published over 350+ peer reviewed scientific papers in Public Health Nutrition and Molecular Nutrition and am principal investigator on several national and EU projects (www.ucd.ie/jingo; www.food4me.org). My popular books are "Something to chew on ~ challenging controversies in human nutrition" and "Ever seen a fat fox: human obesity explored"